Be Rich, Play Golf + Don’t Worry. Picture NOT altered. “I saw it while skydiving,”

How the picture of golfers next to Oregon’s inferno burned up the Internet

For days, a photo of three golfers putting near what appears to be the setting of Dante’s Inferno in Oregon has been making its rounds on the Internet, with commenters doubting its too-crazy-to-be-real imagery and claiming the picture had been altered. Not so, says amateur photographer and Columbia River Gorge aficionado, Kristi McCluer. And she would know—she snapped the photo of the blazing Oregon fire.

McCluer’s fire story begins before the smoke started rising from trees in Eagle Creek on Saturday, Sept. 2. “I saw it while skydiving,” says the airborne adrenaline junkie